Nonprofit helps mother find a home

One recent morning, Elizabeth McGraw drove her two young daughters from the county homeless shelter where they had stayed for a year to the brand new house in Wyandanch where they may live for years to come.

"It's awesome," said McGraw, 26, though the front lawn was more dirt than grass. "It's perfect."

It was the 27th house the small nonprofit Wyandanch Homes and Property Development has built or renovated since 1987 in this troubled 4.5-square-mile hamlet, where census data show the poverty rate tops 16 percent and per capita income is $18,426.

Wyandanch Homes built the latest house, a prefabricated modular home with a white portico in front, on a vacant parcel with a $186,722 grant from Babylon Town. The town is eager to see the area revitalized as it embarks on Wyandanch Rising, the $500 million transit-oriented development downtown.

The house will "lend credibility to what the town is doing here," said Supervisor Rich Schaffer, one of a dozen officials touring the house. Suffolk Legis. DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) noted that about 500 homeless families still require county shelter, but he praised "programs like this, that give people who want to make a positive change in their lives the ability to do so."

McGraw will pay the organization $240 a month -- the county is expected to subsidize the balance of the $1,006 rent. Like all Wyandanch Homes clients, she is expected to move into permanent housing of her own after five years. Until then, officials said, the organization plans to be more than a landlord.

"The purpose of our program is to help people achieve self-sufficiency," said executive director Debbie Joseph.

Before the organization would consider her for a home, McGraw had to appear before its board for a grueling interview last year that covered her finances, personal history and goals, which included a high school diploma and college degree.

Wyandanch Homes assigned a caseworker, Chanee Hammonds, to meet with her weekly. Together, they created a household budget and a plan to earn the diploma -- which McGraw did, last month, from King's Park High School.

McGraw, who first became homeless after she was laid off from Subway three years ago, was working at the time for the nonprofit Hands Across Long Island. She was painfully aware that most of her colleagues had college degrees. A psychology degree would help her help others negotiate New York's byzantine public housing and assistance systems, she figured.

Hammonds agreed. "I saw this light in her," she said. "She just needs a little nurturing."

McGraw is due to start classes next fall at Suffolk County Community College.

She doesn't want her daughters to live in a shelter again. "I felt like I was letting them down," she said.

In the new house, they'll have their own rooms; she'll have the kitchen to herself, instead of sharing with other families. She already knows one of her neighbors, another Wyandanch Homes client; and come spring, she'll cut the grass on her own lawn. "I can't wait to see what comes after this," she said.